THE STORY FROM INDIAN COUNTRY:
What We Learned from the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial,
by Frederick E. Hoxie, Traveling Exhibit Curator
From Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Autumn 2006

IT IS HARD TO REMEMBER a world without bicentennials. An entire
generation has now passed since Queen Elizabeth II helped turn history on
its head by touring Britain's former American colonies to help celebrate the
two hundredth birthday of the United States. In ensuing years, we have
celebrated birthdays of the Statue of Liberty, the Columbus voyages, the
U.S. Constitution, the D day landings, the Wright brothers' first flight,
and founding events in cities and states across the continent. These
occasions shared a central aspect of the 1976 original: a common
commitment to "happy history." Aimed initially at fostering public
patriotism and increasing attendance at museums and historic sites, American
bicentennials and anniversaries have generally stressed the strength and
courage of historical actors and credited them with making possible the
prosperity and happiness of the present.

But the celebrations have not always come off smoothly. In the
1980s, the strongest words of dissent came from American Indians who began
warning Christopher Columbus's fans and advocates that native peoples were
not interested in celebrating his 1492 voyage. Nervous officials
quickly scotched the idea of a 1992 world's fair in the U.S., and
Italian-American and Spanish officials were routinely embarrassed by native
delegations appearing at their parades and press conferences. By the
time the quincentennial year rolled around, chastened promoters had renamed
the 1992 events a "commemoration" and learned to forego the term
"discovery," in favor of the more accurate term "encounter."

Given this history, anyone considering the prospect of a three-year
bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition a decade ago would not have
been optimistic. If the popularizers who supervised previous
celebrations took charge, it seemed we would be in for another celebration
of a national "mission accomplished." At the same time, the story of
the Corps of Discovery promised to bring out dissenters who would surely
remind celebrants that European expansion came at the cost of dispossessing
Native Americans and bullying Mexico into giving up die northern third of
its young country. A "happy history" commemoration-and a "tragic
history" response-promised to open one more battle in the ongoing exchange
of ignorance, resentment, and misunderstanding that Native American
anthropologist D'Arcy McNickle once called "the Indian war that never ends."1

But remarkably, the Lewis and Clark bicentennial seems
to have come off with barely a hitch. While promoted by boosters
seeking tourist dollars more than new insights and leavened by a raft of
goofy souvenirs, the 2004-2006 bicentennial seemed to generate almost none
of the heat or fire of earlier commemorations. In the summer of 2004,
one group of eager Lewis and Clark reenactors was shocked when Alex White
Plume and a group of Sioux protestors met them as they put ashore near
Chamberlain, South Dakota, but that brief confrontation seemed notable
primarily because of its rarity. "Lewis and Clark brought the death
and destruction of our way of life," White Plume told the reenactors.
But unlike the partisans of Colonel George A. Custer or the American Indian
Movement activists who occupied Mount Rushmore, these travelers were in no
mood to fight. "We're not Lewis and Clark," one of them replied.
"We are a group of volunteers."2

WHY THE APPARENT peace and quiet? Three
reasons come to mind. First, the location of most commemorations in the West
and the presence there of dozens of modern tribal governments representing
the descendants of people who interacted personally with the explorers
created a structural reality previous Lewis and Clark commemorations lacked.
This event was anchored in Indian country, and the presence of Indian people
could not be denied. Moreover, the region's native communities survived the
past two centuries of dispossession as well as the previous few decades of
confrontation and cultural revival in part because they had developed an
ability to speak for themselves and defend their view of the past. They were
ready to speak up and they insisted on being heard. The membership of the
bicentennial groups organized to plan and coordinate bicentennial events
reflected this new structure.

From 1976 on, Congress or other governmental
agencies authorized commissions to lead each major historical commemoration.
These commissions rarely commanded the resources to sponsor activities of
their own, but they exercised control over the entire celebration by
stamping some events with their approval and discouraging others. Over time,
the most effective commissions developed an ability to set an overall tone
for the proceedings. This time around the National Council of the Lewis and
Clark Bicentennial played this oversight role. Organized originally by
leaders of a private group, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation,
the council joined forces with the National Park Service and several
historical societies during the 19905 and received the endorsement of
Congress in 1997. A year later, the council completed a complex set of
agreements with the federal departments with jurisdiction over public lands
and programs along the explorers' route, including the departments of the
Interior, Transportation, and Defense. This governmental spadework likely
elevated the importance of consultation and consensus in the bicentennial
planning process. The desire for consensus was also spurred on by the fact
that several Native American leaders were founding members of the National
Council, and one of them, former Nez Perce tribal chair Alien Pinkham,
quickly organized a Circle of Tribal Advisors to provide additional input.
The Circle began meeting annually in 2000.

In addition to this national organization,
most of the states containing Lewis and Clark sites within their borders
organized their own bicentennial commissions. These groups also had
significant Native American membership and took steps to include local
tribal leaders in their planning for 2004-2006 (whether the tribes were
relevant to the expedition or not). The Montana commission became perhaps
the most active of these groups. The statute that established its
twelve-member governing body mandated at least three Native American members
from Montana tribes. The Montana group adopted an elaborate strategic plan
in 1998 that included among its major goals, the creation of programs that
"show sensitivity to all cultural perspectives." 3

To demonstrate its commitment to these
"cultural perspectives," the Montana commission and the University of
Montana organized a national conference, "A Confluence of Cultures: Native
Americans and the Expedition of Lewis and Clark," in May 2003. Noting that
"any complete commemoration of the bicentennial must feature the
perspectives of both the people native to the North American continent and
President Jefferson's explorers," the conference sponsors drew several
hundred participants for three days of lectures, panel discussions, and
performances. The event not only provided a platform for a great many Native
Americans who might not otherwise have been heard, but it offered organizers
of local bicentennial events a well-timed trade fair of speakers,
exhibitors, and performers who could be tapped for future events.

Second, because most major commemorative
committees included representatives from tribal communities, Indian leaders
had an incentive to organize local events that would appeal to a significant
nonnative audience. The bicentennial provided an outlet for tribal
entrepreneurs and educators who wanted to share their community's history
and culture. While groups in many communities wanted nothing to do with the
bicentennial, the anniversary came at a time of rising interest in heritage
tourism and appealed to tribal administrators in a number of rapidly
developing community institutions, including tribal colleges, tribal
museums, and tourist bureaus. At the center of these community celebrations
were ten "signature events" commemorating high points of the expedition.
These events represented the National Council's effort to sponsor major
gatherings that would bring together many of its key members. Aimed at the
general public, each of these activities offered a different group of local
leaders an opportunity to explore the complex motives for-and reactions
to-the expedition. While native people participated in all ten events,
Indian communities sponsored three of them and two others focused primarily
on Native American participation in the expedition. 4

Finally-and surprisingly-the bicentennial
revealed that despite the many conflicts that punctuated relations between
Indians and non-Indians over the previous three decades, the general public
in the West-as well as in other parts of the country-was ready for a more
nuanced view of American history. Of course, sales of Stephen Ambrose's
simplistic and celebratory (but riveting) Undaunted Courage continued to
generate envy among historians, but the turnout for bicentennial conferences
and signature events suggested that average Americans welcomed other views
as well. 5 It is impossible at this early date to understand
completely either the origins or the scale of this public curiosity, but it
is nevertheless one of the most heartening aspects of the bicentennial.

One can only speculate about the origins of
this new curiosity. With more than twenty years of the New Western History
and the New Indian History behind us, it is likely that thousands of high
school and middle school history teachers are now presenting multifaceted
views of American and regional history to their students. Public
confrontations involving historic sites or historians with controversial
views often obscure the fact that the "products" of history
classrooms-teachers, museum educators, librarians and their many supporters
in local historical societies, Boy Scout troops, and service clubs-are
steadily finding their way into communities. Textbooks, popular histories,
and other publications also reflect this shift in tone. And for every highly
publicized confrontation involving Native Americans and whites, there have
likely been at least an equal number of situations resolved by negotiation,
adaptation, and compromise. None of this renders conflict unimportant, but
it does offer a reminder that shifts in public attitude or cultural climate
don't occur in simple steps.

It is impossible to know how large the
potential audience for new views of the past might be, but whatever its
exact size and motivation, it is undeniable that bicentennial events drew
many of these historical moderates. Their presence contributed a refreshing
and unexpected dimension to the Lewis and Clark commemoration. Personally, I
had several opportunities to speak at public events all along the Lewis and
Clark trail during the bicentennial. I can report that the hostile questions
and fearful stares that greeted me at similar venues twenty years ago seem
to have been replaced by an interest in hearing new stories and new voices.
The anniversary events seem to have reached an audience ready to hear its
nuanced message. It will be interesting in the years to come for organizers
to look back and determine whether these impressions were accurate or the
product of wishful thinking.

THE BICENTENNIAL OFFERED historical lessons
as well as cultural ones. In addition to the planning and broad
participation, the bicentennial taught at least four new lessons about the
expedition. Many of these lessons were not new to well-informed readers, but
they were each "new" in that they complicated and undermined a "happy
history" version of events.

First, the West in 1804 was an Indian
country. When the Corps of Discovery moved up the Missouri River, the
Americans did not pass through a wilderness inhabited by Indians. Instead,
they entered a land filled with well-ordered communities. While not a
country in the European sense, the region the Americans traversed two
centuries ago was bound together by common values and customs. These
communities made their living through a combination of farming, fishing, and
hunting techniques developed to take advantage of the specific and varied
environments in which they lived. They shared a deep respect for the Earth's
creators, a keen sense of the environment and its products, a social ethic
based on generosity and gift giving, a conviction that men and women
contribute equally to the common good, and an appreciation of the importance
of interdependence within a vast network of trade and diplomatic
relationships.

In 1800, the Native American communities in
the Indian country spreading across the Missouri and Columbia river
drainages were prosperous and thriving. They knew how best to take advantage
of die abundant natural resources around them and they traded for what they
could not produce themselves. They used highly developed social structures
to educate their children, care for their elderly, and prevent and resolve
community conflicts. As Frederick Baker, an elder at Fort Berthold,
commented, they didn't need schools, police, jails, and social workers, they
had "a brilliant plan for living."

Webs of trade, alliance, and competition
linked every corner of the Indian country. Horses first brought to the
Americas by the Spanish were bred and traded from the Columbia Plateau to
the Missouri River. Steel tools and glass beads from Europe came up the
Missouri and the Columbia and south from Lake Winnipeg, passing on to
trading partners in more remote areas. Other groups jostled one another for
space: Sioux bands moved west, Arikaras moved north, Shoshones moved south,
and farming and trading villages along the Missouri and Columbia struggled
to maintain their independence and preserve their standing in the
marketplace. This was not a land without conflict. All groups sought allies
to help them hold off rivals. But no single power dominated the region; it
was governed instead by overlapping networks of trade, travel, and
diplomacy.

Second, the bicentennial taught that Indians
were essential to the success of the U.S. expedition. Most of the people
Lewis and Clark encountered on their journey were allies: suppliers,
protectors, guides, and advisors. The expedition would have failed if the
Americans had tried to manage alone. It is clear from expedition journals as
well as from an analysis of several specific encounters that Indians
provided vital assistance and saved the Americans from certain death several
times on the two-year trip. Here are brief examples:

The Corps spent the winter of 1804-1805 near
the Mandan and Hidatsa settlements on the upper Missouri. They did not bring
food with them for the winter. They traded metal tools for corn from these
farming tribes. Had they been cut off from those tribes' granaries, they
would likely not have survived the winter or would have faced the renewal of
their journey in the spring in a dramatically weakened state. 6

By the fall of 1805, the Americans had
traveled to the headwaters of the Missouri on the eastern slope of the Rocky
Mountains. When they reached Lemhi Pass in what is now southern Idaho, they
saw before them not a valley leading to the sea, but dozens of new mountain
ranges. Their Shoshone guide, Toby, told them of a trail running west, but
they were unsure of its location and of their ability to overcome this
barrier with their worn-out horses. That moment of despair was saved by the
arrival of a Salish hunting party. Clark reported buying eleven "elegant"
horses from the Salish in exchange for seven of the group's ponies and "a
few articles of merchandise." Sergeant John Ordway noted that they now had
"40 good pack horses." He added that the Salish were "the likelyist and
honestest Indians" encountered on the journey. The Salish horses enabled
them to cross the Lolo Trail. 7

Although the Corps received fresh directions
and new mounts from the Salish, the following weeks were marked by
disappearing trails, diminishing food supplies, and worsening weather. On
September 17, Clark and a few men set out to search for food. Three days
later his small group suddenly found themselves in "level pine country."
They had arrived at Weippe Prairie, a camas-root digging site visited each
fall by Nez Perces and other Indians. Clark saw three young boys and gave
them presents. Soon a man came to greet them and take them to a "large
spacious lodge," where, Clark reported, "great numbers of women gathered
around me with much apparent signs of fear." They were served "buffalo meat,
dried salmon, berries, and roots in different states." Luckily, the
expedition had encountered another group interested in forging alliances
with strangers. Nez Perce leaders welcomed the cold and starving Americans,
helped them with the construction of canoes, refilled their food stores, and
guided them downriver to the Columbia. 8

Other examples of the Americans being drawn
into supportive native networks fueled by generosity and the ethic of
reciprocity abound. Despite the captains' complaints, the coastal Salish
communities helped them through the coming winter. The following spring the
Nez Perces hosted them as they waited for the Bitterroot passes to open and
accompanied them over the mountains. And the following fall, the Mandans and
Hidatsas once again offered the Americans a supply base and a cadre of
steady allies.

Historians can debate how significant a role
each of these examples played in the expedition's success, but there can be
no doubt that the explorers did not see themselves as solitary heroes. They
talked their way west, negotiating past tough adversaries like the Sioux,
gathering knowledge from allies like the Mandans, and eagerly seeking the
help of Shoshone, Salish, Chinook, and Nez Perce leaders. It was
collaboration that brought them success.

The third historical lesson the bicentennial
taught was that for many Indian communities, the journey marked the starting
point of a relationship with the United States. The biggest gap in
understanding between natives and nonnatives with regard to the expedition
is that white people often see the journey as an isolated, distant event
while Indians inevitably see it as the prelude to a program of conquest.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was not an
isolated scientific reconnaissance; it was instead the opening gambit in an
American campaign to establish sovereignty over the western half of the
continent. Implicit in that campaign was a desire to incorporate native
peoples into the web of American power. President Jefferson wanted to gain
access to the lucrative fur trade and to bolster his country's claim to the
Missouri drainage by putting "boots on the ground" and forming alliances
with the tribal leaders not already pledged to Britain or Spain.

Academic historians can argue logically that
Lewis and Clark could not foresee the future, but for modern Indian leaders,
the link from the Corps of Discovery to the larger process of dispossession
that unfolded over the remainder of the nineteenth century is clear. At
first, of course, despite its impact on the fur trade and contribution to
the arms race then underway among tribes, the expedition did little to
expand the official American presence in the Indian country. After all, the
Corps of Discovery failed to find an easy route to the Pacific and few
people wanted to follow their difficult path. But the expedition brought the
vast western landscape into the consciousness of American leaders and
described and documented a vast new territory that seemed ready for national
expansion.

West of the Missouri River that expansion
began gradually, but the pace of change increased as the century progressed.
A profitable fur trade encouraged outposts and new settlements. After 1850,
gold rushes in California, Montana, and Oregon built those remote
settlements into towns. Over time, open land attracted settlers. The coming
of the railroads completed the transformation of the region: the first
railroad to link Chicago to the Mississippi opened in 1854 and the first
transcontinental route began operation in 1869. By century's end, Americans
had a new name for the Indian country. They now called it "the West." This
process was not a peaceful one; rather it was punctuated by displacement,
violence, and military conflict. Bringing Indian people and their stories
into the process of remembering the Lewis and Clark Expedition made the
journey's aftermath an inescapable part of the commemoration.

Finally, as a consequence of bringing
Indian people more fully into the story and by making native participation a
routine element in the commemoration, the bicentennial taught the public one
further lesson: the Indian country traversed by the explorers is not an
imaginary creation but is rather a permanent part of the American landscape.
Today, Native Americans living in the lands visited by the Corps of
Discovery belong to two nations. They are American citizens working in their
communities, paying taxes, sending their young people to serve in the
military, and speaking out on public issues. But these people also belong to
sovereign Indian nations that view their homelands as part of a country that
demands a different kind of loyalty and service. Modern tribes exercise many
governmental powers. Through the efforts of Native American leaders, reforms
within the federal government, and civil rights struggles in many western
communities, Native Americans have won recognition for their legal and
constitutional rights. Across the West, Indians vote, hold office, and
participate in every aspect of community life. Indian people are proud to
live in the United States, but they are also determined to sustain the
values and practices of their ancestors.

BECAUSE THEY specialize in critical
thinking, historians are usually more comfortable with criticism than they
are with praise. Popular culture only deepens this tendency. We seem at
times to live in a nation in which everything is for sale and where public
figures of all kinds are inevitably sucked into a black hole of hucksterism
and spin. This context makes the commemoration of the Lewis and Clark
bicentennial all the more remarkable. It was a small, largely regional
event, but it demonstrated that collaboration between groups with differing
points of view is possible and that this collaboration can produce an
atmosphere in which history can be viewed as a conversation rather than a
sermon. This linkage between collaboration and new ideas is the central
lesson of the bicentennial. Giving everyone their say and building bridges
between groups not only contributes to social peace, but it creates an
atmosphere in which people are prepared to listen to one another and
consider alternative points of view. The history of the United States is
complicated; it is filled with conflict, violence, and tragedy as well as
with noble dreams, understanding, and comedy. In the past, celebrations of
historical events have missed that fact. In the wake of the Lewis and Clark
commemorations, it seems that the public can learn about a complex event.
But that occurred only after Americans stopped repeating old truisms and
began listening to one other.

__________________

D'Archy McNickle. They Came Here first: The Epic of
the American Indian. (New York, 1973)

"Indians Say Lewis-Clark Events Should Note the Harsh Legacy,"
Chicago Tribune, Sept. 25, 2004.
Some observers seemed disappointed that the commemorations did not
produce another skirmish in the culture wars. The Wall Street
Journal, for example, referred to the celebration as a "yawn."
See "Lewis and Clark Are Met with a Yawn after 200 Years," Wall
Street Journal, July 19, 2006.